Has straight-talking, honest Darren Grimes been caught out telling porkies? The GB News host turned deputy leader of Durham Council is alleged to have misled voters by telling them the police advised him not to hold surgeries with constituents. The plod say they told him no such thing.
A Durham resident contacted Grimes with a request to help with parking problems in his ward, asking, according to Byline Times: “Can you confirm surgery dates and any public meetings where this [issue] will be covered?”.
Grimes responded that “to be honest I am still figuring out how to go about that at this moment. The police have advised me not to conduct such events due to security concerns, which I do not want to do. I’ll get back to you if [a Reform colleague] and I do get one set up.”
Strangely, though, Durham’s boys in blue have no recollection of giving Grimes the rather unorthodox advice.
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A spokesperson for Joy Allen, Durham’s police and crime commissioner, said: “The police have not advised councillors not to hold surgeries in the community. They would only do this in exceptional circumstances i.e. if there was a specific risk identified.”
And a spokesperson for Durham Constabulary confirmed this, saying: “No, we have not told councillors they should not hold in-person surgeries for security reasons.”
It’s part of a marvellous start to life as an elected politician for the former GB News blowhard, who initially failed to list being a member of any political organisations on his register of interests, despite being a member of both Reform and the right wing Free Speech Union. He also boasted about how he had refused to attend the council’s “DEI training or climate change training”, even though it doesn’t offer any, and was criticised for making a “joke” about rape on social media.
And this week he was taking pleasure in Rachel Reeves’s difficulties, posting on X: “Lesson for life, kids. Don’t lie on your CV.” A lesson he hasn’t heeded: his LinkedIn profile boasts of his BA (Hons) in Fashion from Brighton University, even though he dropped out after just a year.
